Shadow War Armageddon General /swag/

Mini wargaming came up with a house rule for the campaigns that allowed players to bank points between missions. However, when you decide to spend your banked points, you must spend all of them and any you don't spend are lost.

Aka you could save for 3 games to get up to 300, then spend them all in one go.

It's about the only way more elite teams can afford reinforcements at all.

>It's about the only way more elite teams can afford reinforcements at all.
Not true. Base 100, spend a cache, then have a dude with scavenger

youtu.be/2vgoBnypDuQ

Ty men, I was encouraging him to use more cover, but you know how SM fanboys get about the concept of Marines in cover and hiding...

He'd

>if you take literally every option to get points you can just barely afford a grunt

sure, but their house rule is a lot more reasonable. It's really stupid that you cant bank points honestly.

>play one mission
>win or lose, gain at least one promethium
>next game, hire paladin, take daemon hammer and psycannon
>laugh in the face off all who oppose you
>repeat ad naseum, slowly but surely building up promethium
>pray to the emperor you can win your final game without the paladin

Sorry, can't opperate Keyborad today

He was taking two troops with psybolt ammo and swords, and a leader with the same.

Taking gunners wasn't as important because they were dry runs, but maybe the 4th body would help.

If he wants to go the toyz over boyz route, he should drop the hammers and replace them with falchions or the stave, and take red dot sights, telescopic sights and photovisors on his dudes, and a little extra combat weapons for his leader.
With that, he's got a 36" storm bolter with -2 to saves and +1 to shooting, reducing the cover penalty by one.
If he plays right (which is to say using cover, supporting fire, etc.) and keeps his dudes together so they can back eachother up, he should have fighting chance, with shooting that is at least as strong as his opponents, even if it's not as much. That should give him powerful enough fire to be able to make his way slowly but surely to combat, where he can anhilate the enemy.

Even then, he should go boyz over toyz.

honestly, I think you should just be able to spend more than 1 Prometheum Cache per round. You're sacrificing your position in the race to win the campaign to better resupply. I feel it's a pretty fair trade off.

>no mention o fgangers whatsoever

Funny how they have done everything possible to pretend that this has nothing to do with any factions or models that arn't in a 40k codex.

It's like if they even HINT at playing with out-of-print models it will open the floodgates of players daring to buy non GW proxies.

it takes almost zero effort to port the community edition stuff into shadow war

How viable are Chaos Terminators in this? I've got some nicely painted Black Legion boys that I never get to run competitively, and I'd love to try them out here.

Lgs is having an open tournament starting next week and im trying to decide what team to bring. So far it's down to witches, chaos, and skitarii. Wondering if any anons have experience playing as, or even better against them and could lend some insight.

Right now I'm leaning skitarii with something like

Alpha (Arc Pistol) 180
Specialist (Arc Rifle) 130
Specialist (Plasma Caliver, Clip Harness) 165
Specialist (Plasma Caliver) 165
Ranger (Galvantic Rifle, Frag Grenades) 115
Ranger (Galvantic RIfle) 115
Ranger (Galvantic Rifle) 115

Thoughts?

They are special operatives, so you can only bring one per game and have to pay 33-100% of your resources just for them to show up each game. Also they can't level. Still other chaos stuff looks pretty neat.

How does a tournament work for this?

The game is based around a campaign.

Rather than "to 15," they're setting it "most at the end of the tournament." To stop people from just spamming games they have two open days per week.

Should mention it's for one month.

Also just realized i did the math wrong and can't fit in the grenades.

Well, pray that you are lucky.

Also why are people so obsessed with getting gunslingers? Aren't pistols kinda crap, even if you can use them in melee? I understand for Tau at least since it's the closest thing they get to melee punch, but why Skitarii?

i'm thinking of doing a GK team and am worried about getting wrecked. what shouldi do to maximise my odds?

also it might be possible to get the g employee to approve me starting with a skill or advance or two using the call of the promethium sprawl rules.

Play smart. Learn to hide and use cover.

I feel like it's bad for your endgame to max out on those special weapons right away.

The Arquebus is really good, and while it might take you a few games before you can spring for it, you will probably want to eventually. Meaning that one of your special weapons goes into the trash at that point, since you'll have no eligible model left in your kill team to use it.

I tried out my Tyranids tonight. They seem... tough to use well?

-- Lots of recruitment restrictions (you can never afford anything beside a Newspawn without special points spending acquisitions)

-- few shooters (they have solid guns, but never more than 5 shooters, and not even that if you want CC pros)

-- Lotta wasted Skill ups all across their available skill charts (Gunslinger, the one that lets you recover from Pinning, etc.)

-- Less available cover due to size of models

-- Difficulty of getting into melee versus models above the ground floor (this is yet another GW game with inadequately-explained rules for vertical movement, but my own reading of what *is* there seems to make it tough to pursue anyone who deploys/moves to a higher level than you)

Do Tyranids with two sets of CC weapons roll 3 or 4 attack dice in close combat? Couldn't figure that out.

I feel like they should roll 4, but maybe RAW roll only their 3 profile attacks.

two pairs of arms with melee weapons is just the normal +1 die for two wepaon fighting, three pairs of arms with melee weapons adds another +1 die (really only the ravenor gets this bonus)

>-- Difficulty of getting into melee versus models above the ground floor

From my understanding, if an obstruction is 2" or higher, you cannot climb it normally, thus an emphasis on ladders everywhere from what I've seen. Flesh Hooks allow Tyranids to treat any terrain that is 2" or higher as "Difficult Terrain" so they can now climb sheer walls with no need for ladders. That seems like they would have an easier time than anyone getting around vertical terrain, short of jump pack Special Operatives.

>It's like if they even HINT at playing with out-of-print models it will open the floodgates of players daring to buy non GW proxies.

I mean, I'm already doing it, and those too stupid to realize it will realize it if they mention it.

But can't I just resupply for the arquebus? I figured since a specialist can be armed with "items from the... special weapons" list that I could just buy him an arquebus later when I had more points to go around. This just means in the mean time he has a really nasty weapon to shoot against any melee army that tries to get close, and for 40 points it doesn't feel like it's eating into the starting pool much.

And, yeah tyranids seems a little funky. I figure that it's only really a problem if one of your gun beast dies early on. The immunity to pinning and three wounds a pop seem like they should go a long way towards making them viable. I think they will be one of the few situations where the enemy exposes themselves for a round of shooting and then realizes the whole enemy team is still up and not even pinned and that they're about to eat a venom cannon and several deathspitters to the face. Also bottle checks are basically not a thing, not to mention being one of the few forces that can survive a round of close combat to fight back. All in all, i think they aren't going to be an easy force to bring to bear, but they have a lot of potential.

I have a Tau kill team sitting around and our kill team group is transitioning to Shadow War, how does this team look?

Pathfinder Leader (Pulse Carbine) 170
Pathfinder (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 105
Pathfinder (Pulse Carbine) 90
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Specialist (Rail Rifle) 180
MV31 Pulse Accelerator Drone 50

10 dudes clocking in at 995 pts

Sure, you can buy an Arquebus later. But when that happens the points you spent on your caliver/arc rifle are wasted, because you've paid for four special weapons, but only have three specialists that can use those weapons.

Bit of a min-maxing idea, but in these short-ish campaigns to 15 promethium I feel you need to pay attention to your spending efficiency.

I kind of just don't get how vertical movement is spent. For example, ladders are open ground. Does that mean going up a 6" ladder costs 6" of your move? Can you go up an 18" ladder and stop halfway up as wobbly model?

Hey all, building a guard list for a game on Tuesday. Any feedback please? I've not played a game yet.

I've based it off another list I saw on a previous thread, except I had to give the guardsmen lasguns... feels off sending them into battle with only knives and grenades!

1,000 points on the nose.

Vet Sgt. 120 (220 total)
+ Plasma pistol 50
+ Chainsword 25
+ Frags 25

Specalist 70 (195 total) x2
+ Plasma gun 80
+ Carapace 20
+ Frags 25

Specalist 70 (130 total)
+ Flamer 40
+ Carapace 20

Veteran 60 (130 total) x2
+ Lasgun 25
+ Carapace 20
+ Frags 25

>-- Difficulty of getting into melee versus models above the ground floor (this is yet another GW game with inadequately-explained rules for vertical movement, but my own reading of what *is* there seems to make it tough to pursue anyone who deploys/moves to a higher level than you)
Flesh Hooks, bruv. Flesh Hooks and Adrenal Glands mean you can charge 6" straight up any surface.

As in mordheim i think you should follow the rule "boys before toys", guardsman tend to be very fragile even with carapace armor, especially considering that any S4+ weapon gives you penalty to armor

The big issue I see is that only having one rifle means you're relying on one BS 3 dude and his marker light to force the enemy into close range. A smart opponent will have one grunt run and make sure he's the closest target and all of the sudden you have to close to within 24 or have your whole turn end up being one 5+ shot. Having just the one marker light and no burst canon drone means you're also looking at single shots on 5+ with everyone else even if the enemy stood still. And prey they don't hit the drone or else you're down to 18".

I would try to tailor a list around goading your opponent into charging you so you can rake in those sweet free shots without having to worry about cover or running. Recon drone seems like the hidden gem in this list. It's a move 6, T4, 4+ body that shoots as well as four normal guys.

Recon drone has BS2 though, he shoots as 3 guys at best and when he's required to take 7+ hit shots he's basically an overcosted pathfinder, it also cannot get buffed by the pulse accelerator drone, it looked great on paper but i think i'm better off with the smaller easily hideable and cheaper BS3 dudes.

The abundance of marker lights makes those 7+ rolls pretty rare, only clowns are going to force a -2 penalty and even at 6+ he hits twice as effectively as a pathfinder in the same circumstances. I just don't think T3, I2, LD8 guys wearing imperial issue cardboard can survive trying to play defensively when every other ranged army can get a free round of shooting on them in that band between 24-30.

But he can still carry around both weapons, hell it could make for a nasty surprise if your opponent forgot the sniper had an S5 +2 to hit weapon at 0-12". Also it costs 5 points more than giving him a basic rifle and still preforms admirably out to 24" while having the advantage of being S5.

Get Arquebus ASAP, the only thing you'll be shooting with the Arquebus guy are leader and specialist. And having leader or specialists down first game are extremely good. You can even pin Harlequin or Nid.

the problem with this would be winning 3 caches on the first mission with minimal losses and then spending 300 points on new dudes. that creates gang creep and campaigns break down fast. the progression system in this version is honestly way better for keeping that kind of shit in check.

it sucks for GK players, but honestly? they're the fucking grey knights, of course they can't recruit new guys easily. there's not exactly a lot of them and it takes, what, a hundred years to make a new one? playing as them I think you have to accept that you're playing a weird, wonky faction with a bit of hard mode going on.

Ok then, is it better like this:

Pathfinder Leader (Pulse Carbine) 170
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 95
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 95
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Specialist (Rail Rifle) 180
MB3 Recon Drone 110
MB3 Recon Drone 110

or like this:

Pathfinder Leader (Pulse Carbine) 170
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 95
Pathfinder Cadet (Markerlight) 65
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine) 80
Pathfinder Specialist (Rail Rifle) 180
MB3 Recon Drone 110
MB3 Recon Drone 110
MB3 Recon Drone 110

?

not the guy you were replying to, but I like both of those a lot. not making drones 1/team (as they are for 40k squads) may have been a mistake but it's one you really gotta exploit to get enough firepower in a tau team

I think it would likely be better if you could 'save' your stuff to spend all at once (All or nothing though. You can't spend 50 and save 50.)

So grey knights can go and buy a dude every 2 matches or such.

So... playing around with Skitarii lists it feels like you should just take a bunch of upgraded rangers with rifles and buy a specialist and later arquebus later maybe? Arc weapons just seem... bad. No armor mod and close range accuracy on an army that wants to stay at range. Radium carbines are literal garbage and make no sense compared to the 40k weapon (storm bolters are sustained fire and they're not? wat?). Galvanic rifles, maybe plasma and arquebuses seem like the only viable weapons. Main thing they have going for them is the rather high accuracy between BS4, red dot and photo visor on a +1 to hit long range weapon, so just spam that...? Anyway, here's the idea:

Alpha (Galvanic w/ Red-dot, Photo-Visor)
Ranger (Galvanic w/ Red-dot, Photo-Visor)
Ranger (Galvanic w/ Red-dot, Photo-Visor)
Ranger (Galvanic w/ Red-dot, Photo-Visor)
Ranger (Galvanic w/ Red-dot, Photo-Visor)
Specialist (Plasma caliver, Photo-Visor)

Basically, just aim to pin everyone down and slowly chip away. I'd be totally fucked against murder clowns and space bugs, but such is life in the underhive.

One other idea I had was to ditch the Specialist entirely and take two Fresh-Forged with nothing but Frag Grenades. 'Nades are fucking nuts in this game and it would give some fairly cheap close range deterrent.

building a cadian kill team.
Is their a limitation about how many specialists I can take? Couldnt find any in the rulebook.

What do you think is better for the start? More men or less guys but with better equipment?

A specialist with his shitty 18" Plasma mean he'll either overwatch for several turn doing nothing or have to go first and take the fire himself.

Also Photo-visor are useless if the unit move.
Get rid of photo-visor, change one of them to Fresh-forged and switch a red-dot to the specialist, get him an Arquebus.

And now with Arquebus you don't even have to worry about Harlequin, pin them on every hit.

GK have weird recruitment in fluff. They shove in thousands of guys in and get out one veteran. Nobody knows what their extremely perilious trials are but their recruitment process is constant and massive.

Sounds reasonable. I guess the plan for the newbie is to just live long enough to grow up to be a real boy and earn his red-dot?

Any suggestions on how best to represent Daubers in game?

The plan is that every game something might need to go down, and have a Fresh forged go down first is better. Whatever happen, do not let leader or specialist take fire.

Also if you can get 2 specialist on your list after first mission you now have 2 Arquebus.

play whatever, give them fancy paintjobs.

Maybe a slaaneshi cultist warband?

Sounds like something I'd enjoy immensely. I love that kind of stuff as just winning games doesn't matter that much to me as compared to seeing a narrative unfold. I agree with your decision that the chapter wouldn't assign more resources to a team that incompetent.

- "Work with what you got soldier! DO YOU HAVE ARMS AND HANDS?! THEN POINT THAT WEAPON AT THE ENEMY AND FIRE! You clearly don't have a brain or I wouldn't have to tell you this."

Have you considered the fact that it might be intended to be hard for GK to recruit?

I agree. GK are really strong. I'm fairly sure the rules are intended to make it harder for GK to recruit.

It's in part because fluff. You get a supply drop between missions. That's what your recruit/rearm action symbolizes.

But in part I'm fairly sure it's intended to be hard for GK to recruit. It's absolutely possible for them to recruit new gunners between missions if they have the scavenger skill and spend a cache. Just not as easy as for other factions.

>why are people so obsessed with getting >gunslingers?

Because they're fucking cool, that's why.

Three *pairs* of arms? wat Six arms?

That's right boi.

I'd try to find use for that last fiver. You really want to use your points effectively.

how have you never failed a bottle test ? not even on purpose to save your team ?
>leader got captured
auwtch , my veteran sergeant got boltered trying to escape from hit and run , i got lucky and rolled a 6 though so he ended up picking up escape artist

Astra Militarum can have three specialists in their teams, unlike other factions that can only have two.

More men. My cadian list is nine guys, and two of them are specialists. Hoping to get another specialist after a couple of games.

I'm new into this, any suggestion about how to play orks?

Heh, I'm no expert in Tyranids. Thought four was the max.

okay, thanks.

but for reference could you tell me on which page it says I can have three specialists?

Cheap body Yoof and mass dakka with shoota, some melee
or
Cheap body Yoof, less dakka, but now with more body and more melee with Slugga.

page 71
under the specialists bit

Field as many units as you can without gimping them too much. Orks get Ld bonus for outnumbering their opponents and they get bonus for charging into melee, so you'll probably want to use that. My ork list (wip) is twelve units, but I'd like to squeeze out a few more. So a few shootas and maybe a big shoota to provide cover fire while you get your mob into charging distance. Don't worry about power klaw on nob to begin with. Big choppa is really good, and cheap so you can spend points on more units.

great, thanks.

I just read the rules for campaigns and in noticed that with the limit of 100 pts on new recruits i'm pretty much forced to take rail rifles and recon drones if i want them eventually. So here's a list for the campaign:

Pathfinder Leader (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 185
Pathfinder Cadet (Pulse Carbine, Markerlight) 95
Pathfinder Specialist (Rail Rifle) 180
Pathfinder Specialist (Rail Rifle) 180
MB3 Recon Drone 110
MB3 Recon Drone 110
MB3 Recon Drone 110

It's only 7 models though, is this ok?
I've 30 pts left, should i put photo visors on the snipers or photon grenades on snipers and leader?

If you read pass the line it said you can use a promethium cache to get 100 more.

I read that after posting so i guess that's another option. So knowing that if i go down a sniper it looks like the second one hereIs it worth it? I basically trade a rail rifle with 2 carbines

Drop the recon drone, take only 1 or none. Too much RNG dice roll.

Remember the pulse carbine have very crappy range without the drone. Many weapon will outrange you with their 24" range. And you're putting your specialist at great risk if you give him a carbine.

>crappy range
user you're playing on a 4' by 4' board
24 inch is more than enough

You can also try and get the scavenger skill which gives you extra points between fights to recruit/rearm.

Between 2x2 and 4x4 even.

Carbines and pulse cannons have 18" without drone though

my bad
18 inch is still more than enough though , just hide, play the objective and avoid long range engagements

This is good, vet sergeant doesnt need chainsword as he uses plasma pistol in melee, pass the grenades over to the flamer guy so he has a backup weapon.

With guard, in my experience, you need a bunch of special weapons to stand a chance. Lasguns do nothing.

you need 1 big gun and a whole lot of small ones to keep guys pinned while the big gun sweeps up

Yoofs to Boys is the best upgrade you can get, point-wise (+30 points, doubling up in point cost, nobody else gets as much), so make it count and spam them, gain a virtual point advantage by the 4th game. Try not to lose too many, or you'll squander it.
The basic boy with a shoota and a red dot (cheaper than for other factions, BUT low BS gets more out of a +1!) is VERY cost effective, can melee those that would shoot him up and shoot at those that would engage in melee, and the few pistoleros that would win in both scenarios cost so much they'll get ganged up (so bring enough bodies to gang up on people, also good to go and grab objectives, you might have 4x the units your opponent has... you can spare one yoof to go grab a counter).
Try to stay hidden until in close range, the one big downside to the orks is the low initiative that gives the enemy the first attack.

>the one big downside to the orks is the low initiative that gives the enemy the first attack.
????
initiative isn't used in attacking at all unless it's a tiebreaker in melee ?
the biggest downside to their low initiative is that you'll be falling of ledges a lot and that you're gonna get pinned a lot , even if you stay together

Also less effective overwatch because Fleeing target.

>With guard, in my experience, you need a bunch of special weapons to stand a chance. Lasguns do nothing.
Yes that's the right way, i wasn't talking about weapons i was talking about useless trinkets like grenades and armor, guardsmen need a gun and nothing else with the rest of the points you're better bringing more bodies than slightly protect the few you have

Grenades can be good if they bunch up, to pin a lot of guys and maybe even hurt someone. They have the same strength as a lasgun but almost guaranteed hit.

Probably not on so many guys though. I'm going to have one or two dedicated grenade throwers.

High initiative/movement enemies will have an advantage detecting orks, in the 'sneaking around' phase, the more dangerous access to high terrain is just one facet of this.
It's easier to assume that the orks will have to weather the first round of shooting or melee, and then counter attack, but not more than 1 round, with dense enough terrain.

Kraks are actually decent. S6 wounds on 2+ most of the time and d6 wounds is scary.

Not bad, but I'd switch out the acceleration drone and a duder to get yourself the Recon Drone. A burst cannon is no joke. I also found the extra Specialist to be very, very useful. Here's my list that I played yesterday:

Pathfinder kill team v7.1

Shas'ui Kio'tor [Leader: 140]
+Carbine [30]
(180)

Shas'la Ra'vaal [Trooper: 60]
+Carbine [30]
+Marker Light [15]
(105)

Shas'la Su'tra [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
+Marker Light [15]
(95)

Shas'la Qior'tan [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
(80)

Shas'la Pa'nam [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
(80)

Shas'la En'kal [Specialist: 60]
+Ion Rifle [120]
(180)

Shas'la Xa'kal [Specialist: 60]
+Rail Rifle [120]
(180)

MB-3 "b1G'B3rtHa" [Recon Drone: 110]

drop the frags on the troopers , plasmagunners and sarge as well as teh chainsword and get 2 recruits with lasguns you'll get infently more use out of them than you will out of st 3 frags with 9 icnh range on every guy especially since almost all of them have a main weapon that will be the better option in every case

Can someone with the box tell me how high up off the board the platforms & walkways end up being? I plan on making compatible terrain, and I can't tell from looking if the height ends up conforming to Necromunda's 3" bulkhead standard.

Frag launchers are a bit lulzy. Withing 4" frag grenades autohit so its almost guarenteed pinning against most teams.

What are you talking about? Post a screenie of the rule

SO yeah I just looked over the rules and I'm not seeing that shit anywhere. I wouldn't advise taking so many recons lol. You're going to get jammed up and they're not getting as many upgrades or akills. As in none. You went too far in the other extreme.

Look up the "rewards of battle " section, you can recruit new guys with a limit of 100 pts unless you spend promethium